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Marriage in ancient Greece


The institution of marriage in ancient Greece encouraged responsibility in personal relationships. Marriages were usually arranged by the parents; professional matchmakers were reluctantly used. Each city was politically independent, with its own laws affecting marriage. Orphaned daughters were left to uncles or cousins. For the marriage to be legal, the woman's father or guardian gave permission to a suitable male who could afford to marry. Wintertime marriages were popular. The couple participated in a ceremony which included rituals such as veil removal but the couple living together made the marriage legal.

The ancient Greek legislators considered marriage to be a matter of public interest. This was particularly the case at Sparta, where the subordination of private interests and personal happiness to the good of the public was strongly encouraged by the laws of the city. One example of the legal importance of marriage can be found in the laws of Lycurgus of Sparta, which required that criminal proceedings be taken against those who married too late (graphe opsigamiou) or unsuitably (graphe kakogamiou), as well as against confirmed bachelors, i.e. against those who did not marry at all (graphe agamiou). These regulations were founded on the generally recognised principle that it was the duty of every citizen to raise up a strong and healthy progeny of legitimate children to the state.

The Spartans considered teknopoioia (childbearing) as the main object of marriage. This resulted in the suggestion that, whenever a woman had no children by her own husband, the state ought to allow her to live with another man. On the same principle, and for the purpose of preventing the extinction of his family, Spartan King Anaxandridas II was allowed to live with two wives. He kept two separate establishments: this was a case of bigamy, which, as Herodotus observes, was not at all consistent with Spartan nor indeed with Hellenic customs. Thus, the heroes of Homer appear never to have had more than one kouridie alochos (lawfully wedded wife), though they are frequently represented as living in concubinage with one or more.

Solon also seems to have viewed marriage as a matter of social and political importance; we are told that his laws allowed agamiou graphe, though the regulation seems to have grown obsolete in later times; in any case, there is no instance on record of its application.Plato appears to give a similar role to the state in regulating and applying political and social pressure to encourage marriage. According to his Laws, any man who did not marry before he was thirty-five was punishable not only with atimia (loss of civil rights), but also with pecuniary penalties, and he expressly states that in choosing a wife, every man ought to consult the interests of the state, and not his own pleasure.


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